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I asked what model of robot. When she wanted to know why it mattered, I told her they don’t all house critical components in the head.

Most don’t in fact, that’s usually in the torso. I gestured at the remains of the ad robot by the kitchen. “Electrocution works pretty well though. Anywhere there’s exposed circuitry.”

She set down her purse and began searching the contents. “Well I didn’t fucking know that, I was operating on instinct. The shooting course I did emphasized body and headshots.

So did the brief training I had to complete before I was sent to Syria. It was all muscle memory, but by the time I realized it wasn’t working the damn thing was on top of me.”

Sounded familiar. “All I could do in that position was put the gun up against its body and shoot until I emptied the mag, praying it would die. I must’ve hit the battery I think, that’s what finally stopped it.”

I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. Even a single punctured cell would do it. The voltage has to meet a minimum level for the robot to even boot up.

“Then we aim for the battery packs” I mused. She nodded complacently before processing what I’d just said. “We what? You’re not suggesting we go out there?” Admittedly, not an appealing prospect. But she softened up somewhat when I told her about the subterranean lab.

“That’s about the most secure place I can think of to ride this out in. We can’t stay here.” She gaped. “The hell we can’t. Even if you’re telling the truth, I’m not going anywhere!

It was an ordeal just making it over here in one piece. Besides, I picked up something on the way that I thought you might be able to do something with.”

She produced the mangled head of a police robot. “Hit it with my car”, she explained. The motorized turret assembly was ruined, but at its core were the internals of a belt fed machine gun of some unfamiliar type. I thought back to the man shot dead in the street. Nonlethal weapons my ass.

There was nothing like a handle. Neither was there a trigger, only a set of wires trailing from the motorized firing mechanism to a busted up circuit board freely dangling from the twisted mess as she handed it to me.

“There’s also this.” She withdrew an ammunition container within which was a bunched up belt of what looked to be fairly large caliber bullets.

Madeline looked at me expectantly, as though I could MacGyver the jumble of parts into a working firearm on the spot. I sighed.

“This could take a while. Do you still have your pistol? I’m going to need the handle and trigger from it.” She shook her head. “I think it’s in the car.”

Just then, I heard the boards I’d just barricaded the window with creaking. The cause was revealed to be a set of plastic fingers wedged between the boards as if to pry them apart.

I deliberated whether or not to smash the fingers with my hammer. It would reveal that someone’s inside, only making our new visitor more determined.

But as I sat there trying to decide what to do, a second pair of dextrous plastic hands began to pick at the hastily nailed boards, then a third.

A humanoid silhouette appeared behind the blinds, backlit by the streetlight. It paused there as if listening closely. Madeline and I both remained perfectly still, holding our breath.

No good. Their numbers steadily increased until so many plastic and metal hands clawed at the door, barricaded window and outer wall that it became deafening.

Some of them began to speak. Muffled such that I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I had a pretty good idea. Discount offers, coffee recommendations, that sort of thing.

“I told you we can’t stay here” I whispered. “If enough of them mass together they’ll be able to push the door in.” Madeline now agreed, but pointed out that it didn’t mean much if we couldn’t get past the growing throng of cold, rigid bodies accumulating outside.

For the time being, the two of us were trapped. Huddled, trembling, against the merely wooden barrier which separated us from death at the cold, hard hands of so many robots. I watched the minutes tick by on my phone. Eventually Madeline spoke up.

“You…didn’t have something to do with this, did you?” I parsed the question for a bit. “That’s a really shitty thing to ask. I can see why you’d think so...” I gestured at the massive collection of robots in all shapes and sizes lining my shelves and every available flat surface.

“...But no, it wasn’t me. I’d bet good money it was those hackers. ‘Autonomous’, or whatever. The ones that keep defacing the websites of robotics companies.”

She recalled seeing them at the protest where we first met, and I affirmed that I’d recently spotted them there as well. “They have the means and the motive. What better way to turn the public against robots? Nobody will want one in their home, not after this.”

I pictured truckloads of shot up domestic robots headed for the recycling plant...or a landfill. Then I remembered Richard. Maria ignored him before, but if they both lived through this there was no doubt in my mind that she’d cave into his demands and force me to put Modulus and the rest into storage. That’s if any storage facilities will accept a bunch of robots after what’s happened.

Madeline now had her own phone out, texting various people in her contacts. “Hey, let me see that for a moment”. She clutched it suspiciously. “How new is your car? Is there a companion app?”

She nodded and brought it up. Only basic options. It lets you pre-heat the interior while it’s still plugged in so it’s warm in the mornings, notifies you when it’s done charging, that sort of thing.

The next page had what I was looking for. Lock or unlock the doors, air conditioning, and… “...Have you tried this?” She gave me a quizzical look.

“It says I can set off the car alarm from here.” She shrugged and replied candidly that she’s never had occasion to test it. No time like the present.

I tapped the icon and sure enough, her car began emitting a shrill klaxon consisting of a steady wail accompanied by pulsing chirps.

She grabbed her phone back and scolded me. “That will just attract more of them!” Maybe, I admitted. But it would also lure them away from the front door.

So it did. Tough to hear over the alarm, but putting my ear up against the door confirmed it. The scratching grew quieter as the robots, one at a time, shifted their attention to the new target. When I couldn’t hear anything through the door save for the siren, I chanced a peek through the blinds.

“They’re gone.” She wouldn’t believe me until she checked for herself. The mob of robots, mostly humanoids with a few simpler wheeled models still featuring arms and a head, now clustered around the noisy little runabout. Poking, prodding, clawing at the windows and rocking it back and forth in an attempt to get at the source of the siren.

“That’s not much good to us. I mean sure, they’re on the ground floor now instead of up here, and we can probably get out the door without being swarmed.

But I parked right smack dab next to the foot of the stairs. How are we gonna get down? We could risk running to the other end of the building and jumping the railing, but supposing one of us breaks our legs?”

I mulled it over. She was right. Humanoids these days are fairly quick. Their top speed is something like a relaxed jog, but it would be enough to catch us if we were injured.

Even if it were only one of us I couldn’t conscion leaving Madeline behind, and assumed she wouldn’t do that to me either. That’s when I hatched a plan. “You’re on lookout.” She asked what I was up to. “I’m gonna put something together, you’ll see.”

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 23!}